AWAKENING

"Come and See" the hallways echoed...
As is always the cause of human despair, it was now. A child. A young boy of 7 years old found a box.  'What harm could come from playing with a box?' Kimberlyn asked.
Suddenly he* remembered what had happened when the last person who played with a box she wasn't supposed to, opened it. Yup, pestilence, disease, dead, war, bloodshed, poverty and all that mess landed upon humanity. But wait... no, this couldn't be the box of Pandora.
'Come on! That's just a myth, something to explain why we get ill and die. Nothing else.' Kimberlyn interrupted his thoughts. Or was it? Suddenly white clouds gathered around the boy, a haze of moving swirls. Stunned for a moment Kimberlyn waited. Was that a face? Were these ghosts? He had never before seen ghosts.
"No!" they yelled at the boy. But the boy didn't hear them. Kimberlyn however heard them perfectly. Kimberlyn put his hands over his ears, but it didn't seem to help. The icy screams still crushed upon him, rattling his whole being.
The boy, ignoring the strange voices around him, kept tapping the box. It was a very beautiful box. The brown of the wood had gotten deeper with the centuries. The gemstones were a bit faded, but not because they had broken. They were just a bit dusty. Rubies, opals and shiny onyx surrounded by gold that had a strange yellow-red colour. Almost like it was burning. Kimberlyn could see there was something written on the box, but he couldn't read it. He recognised the markings but he couldn't grasp their meaning.
Kimberlyn inched closer and tried reading over the boy's shoulder. Funny how kids could lose themselves so in playing that they didn't notice anything that was going on around them. Kimberlyn suddenly realised why he couldn't read the marks. The top of the box was covered in dust. Strange that the gold had remained clear, Kimberlyn thought. Kimberlyn reached out his hand to the box to clear the dust off. It was a bit eerie that the boy still did not move. The child probably was autistic or something. Inch after inch he came closer. Suddenly the air around him started getting colder. Kimberlyn shuddered in an ancient reaction to danger. But his mind wasn't thinking about stopping yet. 
His arms were moving like they had to push through rubber. Very slowly, with a sensation of something holding him back. The look on Kimberlyn's face got determined. With a final burst of power he neutralised the resistance of the air. His fingertips touched the book... and went right through!
Kimberlyn had was so amazed by this strange fact that he didn't at first knew he was falling. But he was. His arm disappeared through the book and his head went through the boy and approached the book. Kimberlyn froze. His mind could not cope with the information it was getting. To his instincts however this all made sense. The book was dangerous, Kimberlyn knew that now. He should have never gotten so close.
The airresistance couldn't prevent his face to fall through the book, it just made sure Kimberlyn got to enjoy every singe everlasting minute before it happened. Once inside the book, time took back his normal proportions. Kimberlyn only got a glimpse from what was inside. And then he was out.
Kimberlyncrawled away from the book. He shook his head to chase away the lingering greyness. He stumbled up and turned around. What he saw made his heart freeze. The boy had found the lock on the book and was slowly turning the key... A blackness as endless as the room in a black hole found it's way into his mind and body as he saw what was about to happen.
"Noooooooo!" he screamed.
But, like the other ghosts, he wasn't heard. With a scream of despair Kimberlyn threw himself at the boy. He knew his body had no mass anymore. He knew he had died. He knew he was wondering the earth, awaiting last judgement. And he knew this wasn't right at all. What he did not know was how he had gotten killed and when. Who knew how long he had been wondering as a ghost. Only know did he notice he had no idea how he'd gotten here, no idea what time it was, what day it was... All he knew was that if that book was opened the end would soon come.
Kimberlyn screamed again as he felt the air resistance grow as he got closer to the book. He came to a full stop when the time stopped for a while, like the heart of the universe had stopped beating. Everything was silent and frozen. And then it happened...

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